Delhi High Court judge Justice Yogesh Khanna, who awarded death penalty to the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape case as a judicial officer in 2013, Saturday demitted office after a tenure of seven years.

Justice Khanna became a permanent judge of the high court on November 8, 2016.

As an additional sessions judge, Justice Khanna had, on September 13, 2013, handed capital punishment to the four convicts in the brutal gang-rape and murder case, saying it fell in the rarest of rare category as the crime was committed against a 23-year-old woman in a "beastly" and "hair-raising" manner.

He had said the inhuman and ghastly acts of the convicts shocked the collective conscience of the nation and deserved exemplary punishment.

The death penalty was finally executed on March 20, 2020.

On the night of December 16, 2012, the paramedical student was gang-raped on a moving bus in south Delhi and brutalised so grievously that she succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 in a Singapore hospital.

During his term in the high court, Justice Khanna passed several significant orders and judgements.

In 2018, as part of a division bench headed by then high court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat, Justice Khanna had dismissed US-based agro industries major Monsanto Technology's plea to enforce the patent for its BT cotton seeds in India.

Born on December 31, 1961, Justice Khanna completed his LL.B. From Campus Law Centre, Delhi in 1986.

In 2000, he joined Delhi Higher Judicial Services and eventually became the District Judge of North-West District, Rohini Courts, Delhi, before being elevated to the high court.